Una voz fantasmal / Francisco Pérez Perdomo

A Phantasmal Voice

It was talking and
talking in a low voice
and without stopping
and sibilant
to the winds of the plateau.
Summer was arriving.
The storm was tearing apart
the trees of the forest.
It was talking and its voice was
a very dry murmur
amid the shadows.
It was emerging, no one knows,
from what unknown place.
It was something like that, hoarse,
as if flowing
from the limitless edges
of the earth.
It was something vain.
A voice that was heard
down below
from the depths of the dust.
A phantasmal voice.
With its nails, it was scratching
the walls. Our
ghosts, said Valle
Inclán, are the noises
that are produced inside
ourselves by
our own remorse.




{ Francisco Pérez Perdomo, Eclipse, Caracas: Edición de autor, 2008 }